Archive for 'Language'
Denglish: The English loan word “adden” in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on May 16, 2012
Some days ago, I posted a note on our Facebook-Page, saying that the German language has a new English loan word for the verb “hinzufügen” = to add, which is “adden”. The opinions about English loans in German were divided. Some were happy about this progress in the German language because now it is easier…
German False Friends Posted by Sandra Rösner on May 11, 2012
Being a native speaker of English learning German you might sooner or later come across German words you seem to be familiar with. Sometimes these words contain the meanings you might give them, but sometime these words can be totally misleading. Those misleading words are called False Friends! False friends in language are words spelled…
Key: German weak verbs Posted by Sandra Rösner on May 9, 2012
My last post was about German weak verbs. In addition to the explanation how to conjugate weak verbs in German, I gave you an exercise where you had to fill in the blanks with the correct conjugated forms of the verbs used in the example sentences. Following you find the key to the exercise, the…
Weak Verbs in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on May 7, 2012
In German, there are two basic forms of verbs: weak verbs and strong verbs. Weak verbs or regular verbs are those that follow a set pattern of rules and retain the same stem vowel throughout. These verbs are called weak verbs because you might think of them as being simply too weak to alter the…
Audiovisual comprehension – Der Garten Posted by jan on Apr 30, 2012
This is an audiovisual comprehension about the garden. I´ll give you a little help with the following vocabulary: der Garten – garden deer Gemüsegarten – vegetable garden/kitchen garden das Kräuterbeet – herb bed der Rosmarin – rosemary der Thymian – thyme der Schnittlauch – chives die Erdbeere – strawberry der Rettich – radish die Karotte…
Expressing your opinions in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on Apr 18, 2012
As soon as you are engaged in interpersonal communicative situation, e.g. in face-to-face situations or any form of written exchange, you will recognize that it is more or less necessary to define your position at some time. In other words, sooner or later your interlocutor would ask you about your opinion on a particular topic…
German Idiomatic Expressions: Rund ums “Ohr”– All about the “ear” Posted by Sandra Rösner on Apr 16, 2012
In my last post I already began to talk about idioms – fixed phrases whose meaning cannot be inferred from the meanings of the individual words. This time I would like to focus on idioms that have to do with the ear because there are many useful German idioms, containing the ‘ear’, that will help…